Dogs proved to be the best stress relief for children (All dog lovers: ‘Well, der’)

Anyone with fond memories of being cheered up by a beloved family pooch after a rough day at school won't be surprised by new canine research.

While all dog lovers instinctively know man’s best friend is the best stress reliever, University of Florida researchers have proved it scientifically in a randomised controlled study — science-speak for “you can be pretty certain this is legit”.

For the study, published in the journal Social Development, a team led by psychologist Darlene Kertes invited about 100 dog-owning families into the university laboratory.

The children, aged between 7 and 12, undertook a public speaking and mental arithmetic tasks to boost their stress levels (yes, when you become a scientist, tormenting little kids is part of your job).

The children were accompanied on the tasks either by a parent, by their dog, or by nobody. They all had samples of their saliva collected before and after the tasks to measure the stress hormone cortisol.

“Our research shows that having a pet dog present when a child is undergoing a stressful experience lowers how much children feel stressed out,” Kertes said in a statement.

“Children who had their pet dog with them reported feeling less stressed compared to having a parent for social support or having no social support.”

Dogs proved an even better buffer against stress than parents, but how the children interacted with the dogs mattered: the kids who actively called their dogs over to pat them had lower cortisol levels compared to the kids whose dogs just kind of hung around. (The lesson: teach your kids to hug their dog.)

Kertes says the finding is important because wow we learn to handle stress as children impacts how we handle stress as adults.

“Middle childhood is a time when children’s social support figures are expanding beyond their parents, but their emotional and biological capacities to deal with stress are still maturing,” she saod.

“Because we know that learning to deal with stress in childhood has lifelong consequences for emotional health and wellbeing, we need to better understand what works to buffer those stress responses early in life.”